Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2005-09-14 at 12:06 +0100, Paul Tansom wrote:
Hmm, I can't even persuade people upgrade to XP unless they are forced to. They frequently decide to hold off upgrading when they find out they can't take their OEM license onto the new hardware (assuming they don't look at you like some con merchant leaving you trying very hard to explain that you would be quite happy to install their Win98, but that it is the MS licensing that prevents it, not to mention that selling another copy of WinXP only increases your turnover and not your profit!).
Don't even get me started on OEM licensing. Of course there is no other way to sensibly buy a microsoft operating system because it is almost impossible to buy a brand name machine without a shiny new OEM license so therefore the ability to transfer the license between machines is worthless.
It does if you're buying branded, but if you're building to order like I do when required the OEM license isn't such a non-issue cost wise (although clearly still cheaper than a full retail one by a long margin).
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In fact I have customers who specifically requested not to have WinXP installed on their systems - they went for Win2000 instead because they didn't like XP.
Personally I am with Ted here, I prefer W2k but with XP set to classic the user interface is not brain dead enough for me to move to an operating system for which mainstream support ends pretty soon. Also the firewall and other security features of XP make it far better for some users. Also given enough memory XP is actually a bit faster on similar hardware.
Well this is going back a year or so, but I have to say that I always switch the Windows firewall off when I install. I'm always sitting behind a Linux firewall, but I tend to switch to a better alternative - usually F-Secure, but when forced to it will be Norton (although I don't let Norton anywhere near my own systems).
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Even when we have solved these problems there is still the issue of getting enough critical mass for commercial application support. My girlfriend keeps looking at my home machine in envy but each time she asks "does it run Autocad yet" I have to say no...at which point the option of her using it is blown away because Autocad is her career. She has a massive amount of time invested in knowing it inside out and uses bespoke extensions to do her job that are not available on any other CAD system.
I know this one. I have a number of customers using Autocad. There are still a few restricting applications, but thankfully for the majority these aren't an issue. Sadly for the majority the pre-install and 'its not MS Windows' and 'its not MS Office' are the issue :(